Forget global warming or any talk of unseasonal weather: according to The Guardian, the PAs Philip Eden said the summer of 2000 was the 24th best in the last 100.

August 2000, like June and July, had an incomprehensible bad press. In nearly all regions [er , not Tyneside, Ed] it was warmer, drier and sunnier than average.

If it were possible to dig it up and transplant it to an earlier year, it would have been regarded as a stunner, for it was better than any August between 1959 and 1975.

Appararently, there 195 hours of tanning time in August (presumably between the snow storms), which is 111 percent more than normal. The average temperature was 16.8C (62.2F), a whole degree hotter than usual.

Granted August was a bit better than June and July (which were depressingly wet) but surely we cant all be suffering from mass dementia: the summer of 2000 didnt feel like a stunner and retailers in all sectors have the shorter used till rolls to prove it...